The cryptocurrency exchange KuCoin said there were unauthorized withdrawals from its hot wallets of Bitcoin, ERC-20 tokens and others. According to some estimates, losses could reach $150 million.
(1/4) We detected some large withdrawals since Sep 26 at 03:05 UTC+8. According to the latest internal security audit report, part of BTC, ERC-20 and other tokens in KuCoin’s hot wallets were transferred out of the exchange, which contained few parts of our total assets holdings
— KUCOIN (@kucoincom) September 26, 2020
In a statement, the exchange said that assets in cold storage are secure. It pledged to reimburse all user losses from its insurance fund.
KuCoin CEO Johnny Lyu confirmed that the incident was the result of a hacker attack. He said the exchange has already reported to law enforcement.
The CEO of KuCoin stated that the reason for the stolen currency was the hacker’s attack on the private key of the hot wallet in the early hours of the 26th. They has contacted the exchange to block the hacker’s transfer address and reported to the international police. pic.twitter.com/pr0eM6xRdS
— Colin Wu（WuBlockchain） (@WuBlockchain) September 26, 2020
KuCoin’s team has begun an internal investigation into the incident.
KuCoin, a well-known Chinese exchange, suddenly suffered a serious coin loss. Twitter said it was worth 150 million US dollars. Report learned that the amount of losses currently counted is about 40 million USDT, and it has not been found to be a sign of a hacker attack. pic.twitter.com/K7nz66LROY
— Colin Wu（WuBlockchain） (@WuBlockchain) September 26, 2020
After the hack, Bitfinex and Tether’s CTO Paolo Ardoino said the exchange froze 13 million USDT on the EOS blockchain, and the issuer of the stablecoin blocked 20 million USDT on one Ethereum address “as a precaution”.
PSA: re #KuCoin hack@bitfinex froze 13M Tether USDt on EOS as part of the hack@Tether_to just froze 20M Tether USDt sitting on this Ethereum address https://t.co/GYmESH44da as precautionary measure.
Stay safe everyone!
— Paolo Ardoino (@paoloardoino) September 26, 2020
Earlier in September, hackers broke into the Slovak exchange Eterbase for $5.3 million.
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